Dear All,
I stay in the UAE since 1992 and have quite a few household and elec. gadgets. I do know that the standard voltage is 110 there against 220v. Plus the furnitures here are quite cheap here since customs duty is only 5%. Some friends there advise us to bring all these items by cargo while some suggest we sell it here and buy it new there. In case of a sale here, I would be getting only 20-25% of the original cost (assuming the costs to be the same).Will some migrant from the gulf region advise me onthis issue??
Thanks in advance
Balaji

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Good luck to everyone

Hi,

Even I too asking this,

Can anybody plz tell me that in canada electronic items are costly or affortable. We're very soon coming in canada & now we're staying in dubai. Here electronic items are cheaper then in india. Plz advice us.

Waiting for ur precious replies

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Though I did not come to Canada fromthe middle east, I have quite a few friends who have come to Canada from with container full of household goods which they had in the ME. I myself brought almost everything from Singapore.

However, the tradeoff is between the cost of your possessions and the cost of bringing it to Canada. For me, the total cost of packing and door to door transportation was about US$ 7K but it was well worth it simply because I have exclusive hand carved furniture which is not available in Canada and a lesser intricate carving furniture would have cost me about 20K Canadian.

Electronics are not expensive here and unless you have multi system, they are of no use since Asia uses PAL while Canada uses NTSC. Voltaghe is not a problem for most of the things since most of electronic things available in Asia are of dual voltage (but not so in North America - they manufacture or import ONLY 110 volts). But as written in one of my posts earlier, there might be some family videos which you possess and they would most probably be in PAL. In such a case, it might be worth it to bring your existing electronics or even buy a new TV or VCR to bring it to Canada.

However, no use bringing small electronic gadgets like mixer, dryer, toaster, microwave, iron etc since they all are quite cheap here (all of it combined may cost you about C$300).

For furniture, mind you that it is quite expensive here - if you want genuine good quality wooden furniture - but also no use bringing wooden furniture from Asia (especially Dubai) since the moisture content is very high in that wood and due to heating in the houses here, wood loses moisture and therefore cracks. For Canada, you need furniture which has been kiln dried to about 10% moisture content.

Hope this helps.

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Chandresh

Advice is free – lessons I charge for!!

Jyoti,
I know of a guy who migrated a couple of years ago and took literally everything. As Mr.Chandresh puts it, its surely a trade off between the freight, the chances of damages unless insured and the cost of the same stuff over there. In fact, it was suggested to me that since one has necessarily to take a sea cargo for shipping, even metal frames for cots, mattresses etc are worth taking. Just go to ikea.ca and compare the prices. I found whatever we gonna pay here in AED is charged in C$ there plus taxes. Keeping all this in mind, I have decided to go in for metal beds with wooden base etc from Ikea so that the climate there wouldnt cause much of damage. In case u have any suggestions or plans, kindly let me know so that I can also use them in my purchases!
Thanks
balaji

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Good luck to everyone

Hi Balaji,

Thanx for your reply. But i heard that if we take new furniture from here we have to pay duty there ? Is this right????

Anybody know abt this???

Thanx

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I am of the opinion that one set of everything can be taken without duty. I dont think we can raise suspicion by unpacking the stuff and packing it all together. Even when one goes on a TR to india, one unit of every item is allowed without duty like a/c, fridge, tv, car less than 1.6 hp etc. I will ask some of my friends who went there and get back to u upon receiving a reply from them
Bye
balaji

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Good luck to everyone

When are you both leaving balaji and Kjyoti... I am also leaving around 4 april, How you guys managing your initial accomodation ?

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Manjeet Singh